International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People Association

Mezinárodní asociace divadel Pro děti a mládež


Association Internationale du Theatre pour l´Enfance et la Jeunesse

ASSITEJ

Czech Puppetry Presence At Home and Abroad and in Brief – N. Malíková

News about the world of puppet theatre at home and abroad: Spectaculo interesse Festival in Ostrava; Czech activities at Expo 2005; Petr Nikl and UNIMA´s World Puppet Encyclopaedia.

At Home

Spectaculo interesse – Ostrava 2005

From September 19th to the 24th 2005, the 6th annual international puppeteer festival, Spectaculo interesse, will take place in Ostrava. The festival is a showcase of Czech companies, and this year will present companies from Belgium, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Korea and Japan. This year, the festival will also involve the participation of students of puppet schools from Poland, Germany and France, as well as student works from the Academy of Alternative and Puppet Theatre in Prague.

More information: http://www.dlo-ostrava.cz/

Abroad

Expo 2005

Performer and visual artist Petr Nikl fascinated audiences with his dramaturgical and visual concept of the Czech Pavillion during Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. The Spejbl and Hurvínek Theatre from Prague and the independent company Continuo Theatre from South Bohemia performed during the EXPO 2005 celebrations. Using their own unique approach to puppet theatre, Continuo Theatre has gradually crossed over to create performances that combine the elements of visual and movement theatre with those of “nouveau cirque”, thus continuing to discover new ways of making their ideas come to life. At the end of June, eleven members of the company travelled to Japan to present a special street performance. The designs (costumes, masks, props and even some musical instruments) were created entirely out of paper.

More information about the Czech Pavilion in Aichi:

http://www-1.expo2005.or.jp/en/nations/4c.html

There and Back Again

From Japan to Prague – Petr Nikl Visual Artist at Play

Just before the summer holidays, visual artists and author of the Czech pavilion at Expo 2005 in Japan, Petr Nikl, presented his new two-part performance entitled Dance of the Toys (Tanec hraček) at the Archa Theatre in Prague. The production is part of the project entitled A Child’s Soul in an Adult Body, inspired by the works of Hans Christian Andersen. Nikl, who has continuously been inventing new ways of exploring the techniques and possibilities of puppet theatre (creative artefacts, objects, classical marionettes, dolls, toys, etc), once again used his clever elements to contrast the fragile world of dreams and the contemporary brutal reality. A more detailed review by Jana Návratová can be found in the Dance Section of the theatre.cz bulletin.

See also related article Dance of the Toys in the Dance Section of this newsletter.

More information can also be found in the Loutkář magazine: www.divadlo.cz/loutkar

Information about the production can be found at: www.archatheatre.cz

World Puppetry Encyclopaedia

Intensive preparations on the work on the Encyclopaedia of World Puppetry, that began almost ten years ago, have once again resumed. The publication will take the form of an encyclopaedia as presented Professor Henryk Jurkowski at the UNIMA Congress in Magdeburk. The preparation work has been taken over by the Laffont Publishing House in Paris, and Tierry Foulc leads the editorial team. According to the new revisions, new entries have been rewritten and expanded to include the history of Czech puppet theatre, individual personalities, theatres, and terminology (i.e. Kasparek, Pimperle, black theatre, etc.). In accordance with the decision of the UNIMA executives, who indicated some deficiencies in the work of the new editor (during the meeting in Croatia this June, the editors delivered the newest version without little graphic detail and in paperback form), and are currently considering the Acta Sud Publishing House as the new publisher. The final decision will be made in December 2005. For those who have been waiting impatiently, or who have been working painstakingly on the publication, this is perhaps not very stimulating news.